Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Joint family and Nuclear family (Answer to Comments)

No, I dare not agree with most of what you guys have written! Not because you have written anything wrong, it iss because the post (Analytic View: Joint Family and Nuclear Family in India) is conceived in a very wrong way, the interpretation is flawed to the core, in cases of most of the guys who have commented. If you read the full post in entirety, you'll realize that the post tells you about the advantages and disadvantages of both the systems AND the ways to get around the problems in case of joint families. Read it again to believe what I am saying.

Maliji:

You say that joint family is a panacea for Indian males, and so is a nuclear family, in my view. When you say, "in male dominated Indian society..." you're actually blaming males for being chauvinistic, not the joint families. Indeed, in the poorer sections of Indian society, the nuclear family suffer more from the male-dominance and even violence on women, because there are no other women to understand the pains of fellow ladies.

If you blame joint families for unhygienic conditions, death of children, or any similar crime, you're absolutely unjustified because no family system teaches you to commit crimes. It's just how you're brought up, what are your educational and financial backgrounds, and at an individual level, how much respect do you hold for women. Any individual pray of any such diseases (yes, I said, diseases ) would commit crimes regardless of what family system he is in.

If you say you're going to break the families into nuclear ones in the name of helping Indian women, please be sure to have enough similar sort of social workers along, who are ready to support elderly-aged people as well, such as your own parents. Do it when you think there are enough in number affordable old-age homes that are not run by your fellow social workers.

As you said about yourself that you don't check on your MIL more than once weekly, should one understand that she wants you or your husband to check on her frequently because she likes to boss around? If so, either you or her, is wrong! Because generally, people with desires to feel belonged are not rare as we're still human, trust me. Why can't one think that marriage means that you got into a FAMILY, instead of tying up with just ONE man? None throws the children away after they're born, because it's the desire of feeling belonged and belonging to someone! Why do you even get married, when you could just live-in with him instead? Isn't that to feel belonged?

People who are educated and have read their curricula can definitely use their vocabularies to defy the existing systems, in the pretext of being called, progressive. But isn't it just an unfair advantage they get out of their devoid-of-values education, which makes them capable of manipulating with words, figures, and talking about all sorts of things except the real human values? I wouldn't have called the educational system flawed or devoid of values, if the progressive people around would have utilized their earned skills to improve the systems, not to confront them to benefit themselves as individuals.


Anonymous #1:

"My point is, why should we not opt for nuclear families? When a girl can leave her whole world behind and come to marry a guy she loves, why is she then supposed to stay with his parents as well??? Did I date his parents for 5 years? Did I get married to his entire family? Why can't we stay separately?" Your words! My comment is, No, no one stops you from going nuclear if that seems to solve the problems. My post was about the troubles and their resolutions, unfortunately the readers were just too quick to read it and understand that I spoke about the problems and careful ways of dealing with them, didn't I? Of course, I could state about the solutions when I knew that there are problems existing.

Every relationship in the world definitely suffers one or the other day for one or the other reason. When the number of relationships around a person becomes more than one, everything must be woven in a way, no thread of it loses its shine. Otherwise, you may end up adding merely patches and leaving no sheen anymore.

People who say, why should they be adjusting to get accommodated into a family with in-laws, should understand that the in-laws are doing the same thing with you. If you say, you dated their son for past 5 years, why didn't you put this condition across to him before starting dating? No, you couldn't do it then, as you perhaps might not have thought of this dreary change that you had to go through. And similar was the case of their parents, who now had one more person in their family, they also didn't give birth to you. The level of feeling stranger to each other is reciprocal, not only yours is higher, trust me. Such situations are carefully handled if you WANT to work things out, if you don't, just get into a nuclear way. Of course, other pains are awaiting you, just be prepared to not be complaining. This is precisely what my post was about.


Anonymous #2:

Your comments are nothing more than statements full of male-bashing. If you think traditional bahu are being ill-treated, come and educate old in-laws instead of breaking things. After all, revolutions begin at home, don't they? Change yourself in a way that's fruitful for you and your loved ones, yes, I am talking about your husband as well, if not his parents. Ask him by writing him an anonymous e-mail if he doesn't love his parents.


Pallavi:

Again, as I said that there do exist lots of problems in the system, but what are we doing about it? What are YOU doing about it, except ranting? If your husband loves you, ask him to teach his parents in a matured fashion, and still if the problems aren't resolved, part ways. However, ranting, yeah, it's very easy and relaxing, isn't it.


Anonymous #3:

I agree with you, why to get into a hell when you knew what it was going to be like! Your comments about education and educated Indian mob are true as it has taught them clever ways to use tongues instead of using minds and reading hearts.

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